The games that caught my attention the most were Payday: The Heist, Crusader Kings III (essentially a live service), and Hollow Knight. Honorary mention: Lovely Planet, it pushed me right to my limits, any little bit harder and I wouldn‘t have been able to get full stars. I did play some Zelda but it didn‘t blow me away.
The worst games, hmm. For sure Magicka, CTDs en masse, absolutely unplayable. DiRT 5 was a huge disappointment to me, driving felt terrible and somehow it looked worse than GRID 2019 with cars that could’ve been toy cars. An HDR spectacle though for sure.
I remember trying to play Magicka a decade ago and I couldn’t even get it to run, but it worked perfectly when I played it again recently. Maybe it’s just very flaky, but I’d recommend trying it again when you’ve got a new machine to try because it is really fun!
Empyrion (you love sandbox games with endless content with very little guidance? Try it, I’m on HWS RE server and after 260h I’m still just scratching the surface)
Marvel Midnight Suns (top notch on many levels)
Chrono Ark (one of the best roguelite deck builders for me)
The scroll of Taiwu (perfect cultivation sandbox RPG, official translation should come in 2024)
Worst : Not much… I just don’t understand why I can’t get into Thea 2. It’s supposed to kinda be my dream game. Yet, I’m always bored after 30 min.
Shoutout to Archmage Rises. It has a long way to go but it could possibly be my GOTY 2024.
Vampire Survivors - They keep releasing new content, and I keep devouring it. This game is even more addicting than Cracktorio.
The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog - Best April Fools joke this year, and a solid light visual novel in its own right. This was a pleasant surprise.
Remnant II - My choice for Game of the Year this year. TotK let me down, and while BG3 is solidly in the #2 spot I don’t really vibe with it. Remnant II is an excellent sequel that builds on the strengths while fixing the weaknesses of its predecessor. It’s a hell of a game that still manages to stand out in a year stacked with great titles.
Note: I didn’t play AC6 or the new Street Fighter, so I’ve got no opinion on how they match up.
Worst:
Keywe - A puzzle game where you play as Kiwi birds managing a post office in Australia. Not my thing, but my sister likes it and wanted to play the multiplayer with me. We played online and holy hell this game’s netcode is broken. We kept desyncing mid-puzzle and then whoever was hosting would have to finish the puzzle while the other stood and watched because they couldn’t see the actual gamestate. It’s probably a fine game as a solo or local play experience, but it left a sour impression.
Did Remnant 2 feel more unique than Remnant 1? I tried the 1st and fell off in the 2nd world because it all felt too similar with a handful of enemies and procedural chunks. Reluctant to try the 2nd if it’s got the same lack of variety.
I didn’t have an issue with that in Remnant 1, but I think it was improved on that front. There’s more enemy variety, with several fodder mobs and elites with unique gimmicks, and some of the bosses are straight up weird. The maps are still procedurally generated, but there are more types of maps in the pool. They do still feel samey when you get two maps that use the same chunks, but there is less overlap from map to map.
They also made the area progression part of the world proc-gen, so you can encounter the areas in a different order on different play-throughs. That does help keep the replayability fresh, but it doesn’t fix the issue. It just sort of sweeps it under the rug so that it takes more playthroughs to notice.
Mario Party 3 on switch still holds up and the mini games are challenging enough on Super Hard.
Tears of the Kingdom. The best fights were when I went to Ganon with 3 hearts and no gloom healing but still. The game was difficult and I still haven’t gotten all the shrines. Getting all the light roots brings back the heavy exploration that you got in Breath of the Wild in the over world. Of course the over world was the only world.
I played the remake of Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life and it’s pretty good. It lacks a lot of gameplay when you compare it to Stardew Valley. But the family aspect was compelling. The game is a challenge tho but I like that.
Going to second Midnight Suns. I’m a big XCOM fan, and while there were a lot of differences, it still scratched that same multi-genre itch.
I also played (in no specific order):
Hitman - World of Assassination - A whole hell of a lot of game in one package. Definitely the highlight of the series if it is your type of game.
Horizon Burning Shores - A worthwhile reason to go back to Horizon Forbidden West, though it was over sooner than I’d like. I’d feel better about the length if it was easier to miss the story, but anyone who goes from Forbidden West to the next game without playing Burning Shores might be caught off guard by the new character. (And I’mma be mad if they don’t bring back the new character!)
Death Stranding: Director’s Cut - Another YMMV game that will suck you in if you like good progression mechanics and don’t mind a slightly slower pace. And Hideo Kojima being Hideo Kojima.
Crisis Core - FFVII Reunion - You know the old school parenting style of making your kid smoke a pack of cigarettes so they want to wretch every time they catch a whiff of them? I accidentally did that to myself with JRPGs during the PS1 era. I thought maybe Crisis Core could coast by on nostalgia factor because I was able to enjoy FFVII Remake. Crisis Core was a big stinker though. The story hits every bad JRPG/anime trope you can think of (fucking Genesis… WOOF), and the quest design seems designed to embrace pointless backtracking and tedium.
Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty - I will argue until I’m blue in the face that while the PS4 and Xbox Series Whatever was a shitshow, the PC launch of CP2077 in 2020 was only a bit rocky. All the praises that people have been singing about the game since 2.0 and Phantom Liberty? They’re praising the same elements that have made the game great since Day 1. It’s just not sandwiched between T-poses and occasional CTDs any more. PC veterans who lived through rough launches of great games (like Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines or, hell, Witcher 3!) were right at home. The Phantom Liberty Expansion was a great excuse to revisit Night City and remember why I fell in love with the game three years ago.
Slay the Spire - Because I’m going to hit A20 and kill the Heart with Silent eventually, goddammit.
Baldur’s Gate 3 - Because best $50 I spent in 2020.
No Man’s Sky - I waited until this year to pick up NMS and this was another one that sucked me in for a solid couple months. Hello Games has sunk years into making this game a great bang for your buck if you like exploration and building.
Reading your post and then reading the replies made my chest hurt lol.
Bungies halo campaigns were just something special. I don’t know when we’ll see a co-op fps at that level of quality again. Those titles have lived rent free in my brain for the past decade
One thing you could do, depending on how much you and your friends enjoy a challenge. Is to do the halo 3/ODST Vidmaster challenge. My friends and I did it together twice when it was first released and those are some of my fondest gaming memories
I think there were some middling games and some really great games this year, and even the ones I didn’t enjoy were just not for me, as opposed to actively being bad games. I’m not going to board the hyperbole train and say it’s the best year for games ever, but I think it was very strong and had a lot of variety which is good for everyone. Looking forward to 2024 when I get to play everyone else’s favorites in this thread :)
How did Remnant 2 compare to Remnant 1 for you if you played both? I started Remnant 1 just before the 2nd release, and I really liked the concept but everything felt too generic and started to get old really quickly. I think the biggest issue was the procedural generation made everything too similar. The worlds all felt the same with only a few enemy types.
It may not be my top game, but it’s up there! I really glad to hear you liked it that much though, I can’t wait to see what the DLCs will look like. There’s already a lot of variety, but more stuff to do is always great.
I will agree with the other poster that already replied and say it’s MUCH better in Remnant 2. Variety in stages, story, and enemies are all much better, and the bosses/mini-bosses are more fun than the first. I loved the first game as it was a really great small party game to play online, but the second is better in almost all aspects. If you have Xbox, it just went on gamepass, and I think it’s worth your time to check it out.
As a side note, I will say that the final bosses in both games are absolute bullshit. It’s the one thing that they didn’t seem to listen to as far as criticisms from the first game. If you have a party you’ll be fine, but soloing can be tough.
I played a lot of great games this year, but also many that didn’t click with me.
There’s a huge spikes of games that I played this year, because I decided to start tackling my backlog by streaming them, these include games I’ve bought on sale, and those that are on PS+ Extre.
Can't finish because of difficulty spikes- Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown: - Dropped it after that mission where you need to protect a car, while manouvering between buildings in a city, as expected I kept crashing into buildings - Shantae: Risky’s Revenge- It was fun at first, but then there’s some precisioin platforming part, which I just wasn’t in the mood for - Super Mario 64- There’s a level where you’re first introduced to flying mechanic
Dropped it because of technical issues- Assassin’s Creed Origins- The game crashed within the tutorial area - Call of the Sea- I got motion sickness - Kena: Bridge of Spirits- Again, I got motion sickness, supposed to be an okay game. - Tardy- Weirdly because the game has lots of reading, but the fonts are way too small for me - The Ascent- Too much clutter on scene when you reached the first city / settlement. The first section feels okay, but again, some items / objects are just way too small for my failing eyes
Dropped it because it's not clicking- Gnosia- It was supposed to be fun at first, but then the rolls I got was not advancing the storyline - Grime- This feels like the moment I dislike souls-like metroidvania. It might be when I realized that I’ve picked the wrong upgrade path, and there’s limited resources for upgrading your character - Gungrave G.O.R.E- This is not a good game - Horizon Forbidden West- The combat feels worse than the first one. There’s so many more things to do that has way too many writings that I barely care enough. I’d rather have smaller number of sidequests with good writing, than a large number of them where everyone has so many stories to tell. This feels like it’s becoming a ‘forever game’, which might be good, but the combat is just not satisfying at all. - Mafia: Definitive Edition- Dropped after the racing section, was not feeling it. - Mass Effect: Andromeda- Dropped while in the first area. Something about the movement not clicking. - MediEvil (Remake)- Dropped after the 3rd or 4th area. - Moon: Remix RPG Adventure- This is supposed to be great, but I just got tired of the slow pace - NEO: The World Ends with You- I talked about this before, the game keeps on interrupting you. Walk to a new area, fluff dialogues, walk to another area, more inconsequential fluff dialogues. This seems to be a (bad) trend among JRPGs or anime style game. - Oxenfree- Character dialogues just don’t gel with me. Also there’s a time limit when choosing replies. - Root Double: Before Crime * After Days - Xtend Edition- The slice of life part is atrociously slow, most of them are inconsequential ‘look at me, i’m a cute anime girl’ - Sea of Stars- The combat is way too slow, and requires you to do timed button presses. Also for the part I was in, the story feels generic. - Shadow of the Beast- JUst not good - Star Ocean: The Divine Force- Arrived at port town, overtly anime character came in, dropped the game. THe combat was fun, but the character / story are not clicking - Tchia- This is supposed to be good, but I burned myself out for trying to collect everything available before advancing the story - The Adventure of Little Ralph- Feels kinda repetitive - The Wonderful 101: Remastered- I don’t think this game works well without touch screen - TUNIC- Sadly another indie trend that I dislike, difficult combat encounters that don’t feel satisfying. It’s supposed to be a very good game. - Unpacking- Played it on PS5, I dropped it after rotating object for quite a number of times. I think this game is probably better suited for mouse and keyboard - Vernal Edge- I wanted to like it, but the combat is not fun. You have a dedicated ‘Pulse’ button to heal, which throws your sword at the enemy, and you need to press attack + direction to launch an attack that could heal you, which is already a roundabout way of healing (the mechanic is not fun). Then you have enemies that need to be stunned by X number of charge attacks, and the game throws you into small combat area with 4 - 5 enemies that doesn’t get knocked back without 3-4 charge attacks.
Finished it, but it's kinda not good- Root Film- Root Letter was okay (but arguably ruined with the updated version with multiple endings), Root Film is just plain boring, especially the ending. The story was enticing at first, but nope, it became bad by the end of the game. - Shenmue II- Shenmue. - The 3rd Birthday- I like the combat, considering that it was on PSP.
I thought the story was pretty boring and the vast amount of copy and paste in the game made it feel like it just dragged on. That absolute joke of a final boss was something too.
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